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Thursday, March 13, 2014

Ten resources for FREE art

There’s still a little bit of Christmas up in our house. Remember this “art” I told you I was taking down three weeks ago?:

Still haven’t done it. I figure why take them out, hang them back up, then take them down again to fill them…again. I’ll just do it once I figure out what I’m replacing them with. It’s all about efficiency. :)

My plan for this wall has been to fill them with free prints – there are SO many options online. I shared one of my favorites with you a few years ago here.

The prints I used are still in our family room (above the chair):

You can find a crazy good selection of free prints (for personal use) at the NYC Digital Gallery.

Make sure you have some time when you sit down and look through – there really are a ton. Some of my favorites are the botanicals:

The possibilities are just endless with what they have online.

There’s a lot of other resources out there too. Free Vintage Posters has a ton of uhh…free, vintage posters. :) They would be great for a game room or basement. I think their train images are perfect for a little boy’s room:

They all have that classic look to them with bold, bright colors. Love it.

I first read about this next one at Darnetha’s site awhile back – it’s a collection of prints available at the Missouri Botanical Garden Library:

There is a huge selection there too, but a lot of botanical prints can be found here. It’s a little complicated to get the prints downloaded, so follow Darnetha’s easy instructions and you’ll be set.

There’s some really talented bloggers out there who share their works for free too, lucky us! Ashley and Jamin at the Handmade Home create free prints that you can download. I LOVE this precious alphabet art:

You can download each one and print them out on your own. How sweet, and what a great gift printed out on heavy cardstock. So cute for a baby’s room. (Or just learning the abc’s!)

Everything Etsy is a GREAT site with a crazy amount of fun ideas – this is her collection of 101 free printables from all over the net:

This list includes everything from party printables to things you can hang on the wall so it’s a lot of fun to look through.

And of course the best art in our home is usually homemade. Not because I created it, but because it’s usually involves my kiddo. :) At Christmas I shared one of my favorite crafty DIYs over at the Dave Ramsey blog:

It makes a great gift at any time of the year and it’s SO cheap (if you have black paper and a printer it’s free).

I shared the Waterlogue app here and the cool things it does with your photos:

I printed out a few on thick cardstock and they look SO good. It’s such a cool app!

Most of the time I just print out our photos at home, and black and white saves the expensive color printer cartridges. I’ve taken down the vinyl since this photo (it had to be removed when the wall was painted) but the photos have been up for years. :)

So there you go! Ten ideas for free (well, except for a few initial bucks on that app) art in your home. Do you know of any I didn’t include? Have you used any of these resources? The internet is a wondrous thing!

20 comments:

unsplash.com is a website that has TONS of free high resolution photographs. There is an incredible amount of variety. I've only used them as photographs, but I bet some of them could be altered with the Waterlogue app you shared about to create some really beautiful and interesting pieces. After over a year of reading this is my first time commenting. Love your blog! Thanks for everything you share! -Megan

I am seriously obsessed with the Waterlogue app now, all thanks to you! In fact, I have told a bunch of other people about it since your first post on it. You should get some royalties! Now to get a new printer so I can actually print some of this awesome art for my home.

I adore you for having a little bit of Christmas still up. I adore you even more for admitting it. I have been known to have Christmas stuff still around in February. Thank you, thank you for having Christmas pictures still on your wall. I heart you.

These are great! I was tickled to see the Missouri Botanical Garden, as I am currently a Master Gardener student there. They are such an amazing place!! One of the three top botanical gardens in the world. Thanks for all the suggestions. I know I've told you this before, but I just love your blog.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I've been looking everywhere for some beautiful prints (maybe landscapes) that I can use over my couch. They need to be high res to print out large enough, though. Sarah, I love your blog and your upbeat, fun attitude! Pretty please, can you tell me where you got your mirror over your fireplace?

Soooo, I have a, maybe dumb, question for ya. I'm constantly seeing all of these "free printables" for anything from wall art to labels. I cringe anytime I hit print, even if it's just a black and white recipe. Isn't it insanely expensive to print off something like the botanicals, (which I LOVE)? Or are people printing somewhere other than home?

Mindy I print quite a few things other than documents (photos, labels, occasionally stuff for the walls) and we only have to change out our cartridges every few months or so. If you were doing a ton you'd probably use up most of the color but it just depends on how many. Places like Staples or Walgreens print them for pretty cheap too. :)